GameStop Enjoys Best Q1 Ever

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The game retailer has been added to the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. corporations.

By Daemon Hatfield

Today GameStop announced rosy financial results for its first quarter ended May 5, 2007. Net earnings were $24.7 million, a 111 percent increase over last year's Q1. Total sales were up 23 percent to $1,279 million as compared to $1,040 million in the first quarter of 2006.

Hardware sales grew 75 percent during the quarter due to hysterical demand for the Nintendo Wii and DS and strong continued sales of the Xbox 360. Interestingly, GameStop also points to impressive sales of the PlayStation 3 as contributing to the increase in hardware movement.

"Our first quarter results were driven by the strong growth of next generation hardware despite both Nintendo products, the Wii and DS Lite, being in short supply throughout the quarter," said R. Richard Fontaine, GameStop's Chairman and CEO. "Our business is benefiting from unmatched platform expansion. For much of the quarter, seven different platforms were represented among our top 25 best sellers. Not only was this unprecedented, but there is every indication that the Wii and DS Lite titles are attracting a new audience of gamers, while the allure of genre breakthrough titles like Guitar Hero II are expanding the audience for videogame product.

"I am also happy to announce that during the first quarter GameStop was added to the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. corporations," Fontaine concluded.